Author: bjornarkvernevik

In April 19th – 20th 2016, we arranged the fourth workshop – this time with participants from student support services. The focus group took place at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, in Trondheim, Norway. The group of participants were diverse consisting of staff working for students with disabilities in a Disability office or providing other services for students at a Faculty or an institute level.

In this fourth focus group, our objective was to gain insight and understanding of the student support services knowledge and thinking when it comes to forming and implementing universal design for learning as the main approach for including all students in higher education. This includes how student support services perceive their role in a transition from working ad-hoc with individual accommodations to planning proactively with universally designed solutions that includes students with disabilities and provide better learning for all students.

Timeline

Call for participants: 1st of March 2016

Application deadline: 16th of March 2016

Notifications regarding status of your application: 18th of March 2016

8 students from Ireland, Belgium and Norway met in Dublin from the 18th to the 20th of March. During three intense days they participated in the Student workshop, where the aim was to capture the experience of learning for students with disabilities in Higher Education. Their contributions are highly appreciated and will serve as important input to the UDLL project.

Amongst our objectives were to clarify when learning is challenging, engaging and interesting – and how the students learn best. Through sharing personal stories with the group, the students got to point out key challenges and promoters affecting their learning process in higher education.

UDLL (Universal Design for Learning – License to Learn) is the name of a European project financed by Erasmus+. The project theme is Universal Design for Learning, and the main purpose is to examine how all students can get equal opportunities to learn using more flexible methods of teaching, assessment and service provision to cater for different styles of learners.

The project will use the principles of Universal Design both as a pedagogical strategy and as a set of specific guidelines and practical tools, to demonstrate how Universal Design for learning (UDL) can be the best solution to develop an inclusive learning environment and a higher quality of learning to the benefit for all students. The quality of the UDL solution will be secured through contribution from four important stakeholders: the student/learner, the academic staff, the higher education policy makers and the student support offices. The project outcomes will be:

A Best Practice Guideline about universal design for learning addressed from and for the four stakeholders: students, academic staff, management and student support services.

A digital toolkit, designed for students to gain more knowledge about their challenges and needs, as well as appropriate tools to study with their disability.

Note that the recruitment process is closed. We are happy to inform that we have selected nine students to the workshop. We are now preparing for exciting days with lots of new learning in Dublin in march. Stay tuned for update on the project!

We are now in the process of recruiting students to the first workshop. There will be recruited three students from each partner country. Important conditions for participation is that the applicant is a student and have a disability. The workshop will take place 18.-20th of March 2015 in Dublin, and students who participate will also receive free participation to AHEADs conference, which is arranged with the same theme parallel to the workshop. The project covers all expenses with travel and accommodation and any adjustments needed.

Attached is information about the workshop and an application form. Note that the deadline for submissions is 8th of February 2015.